Using an ESP with OL Connect

An email service provider (ESP) is a company that offers email marketing or bulk email services.

This topic explains why and how to use an ESP with OL Connect.

Reasons to use an E​​SP

These are a number of reasons why you would need an ESP:

  • ESPs ensure a high deliverability, as most ESPs are whitelisted or approved by ISPs (Internet Service Providers) as legitimate email delivery service. So they help you to avoid having mail detected as spam.

  • ESPs provide comprehensive tracking options to measure open rates and they log which links were clicked and by who. Typically this information is available via an online dashboard.

  • Most ESPs provide Bounce Management options. They will stop sending messages to addresses that return a hard bounce and retry for soft bounces before removing that address.

  • EPSs can handle unsubscribes and prevent accidental sends in the future.​

Choosing an ESP

The first thing to do to use an ESP with OL Connect is to choose an ESP and create an account.

Mandrillapp.com, a popular ESP, used to have a free account but now requires a paid MailChimp account. Luckily there are plenty of alternatives that provide free accounts (often capped to a max number of emails per month and sometimes having throttled output).

OL Connect has been tested with: Mandrillap.com, SendGrid (easy user management), MailGun (nearly instant statistics) and MailJet (shows best performance on the free account).

Adding an SMTP Preset for an ESP

After creating an account, add a SMTP settings preset in OL Connect for the chosen ESP, via the Preferences dialog of the Designer (see Email SMTP settings).

Make sure Use authentication is checked, and put in your SMTP Username in the box below.

Note: Presets for different ESPs are already available in the list of default presets.

Sending an email with an ESP

From the Designer

To send an email or test email with the use of an ESP, start generating the email as usual (see Generating Email output). In the Send (Test) Email dialog, pay attention to the following settings:

  • In the Outgoing mail settings area, select the preset for your ESP in the Presets drop-down.

  • In the Password box, type the password provided by the ESP.

Note: The ESP might also have a test function you can use. Check the options of your ESP.

From Workflow

In a Workflow configuration, the OL Connect Render Email Content task provides a way to generate email output without sending it. The email output can be sent using one of the email output tasks, in the same process or in another process. See Render Email Content in the online help of Workflow.

Adding custom ESP handling instructions

Most ESPs allow you to provide custom handling instructions as part of the email message, via custom headers. Typically these include instructions to enable open rate tracking, click through rate tracking and assign tags/categories to messages. Assigning a tag/category allows you to view statistics per email type in the dashboard of the ESP. Note that each ESP has its own notation and instructions.

In a Connect template, custom headers may be added through a Control Script (see Control Scripts, Control Script API and section).

Custom handling instructions for email that is going to be sent by the OL Connect Mailjet or OL Connect SendGrid Workflow plugin must be specified in the plugin's settings.

The following samples show how to assign a tag or category to a message for various ESPs.

​SendGr​id

Dashboard: https://app.sendgrid.com/

Documentation: https://sendgrid.com/docs/API_Reference/SMTP_API/using_the_smtp_api.html.

Write a Control Script that adds a header with the name X-SMTPAPI and sets its content to the required JSON string (for example: "' category': ['invoices']").
For example:

Copy 
var headerObj = {
    "category": ["invoices"]
};
merge.context.sections["Content"].addHeader("X-SMTPAPI", JSON.stringify(headerObj));

If the email is going to be sent by the OL Connect SendGrid plugin, the X-SMTPAPI header will not be used. Enter the category or categories in the plugin's settings instead.

Note: Sendgrid strips out their own mail headers. The results need to be verified via their Dashboards (e.g. the Stats section lets you verify the stats for specific categories). Alternatively one can use their Web API to retrieve stats in JSON format. To view the category stats, log in to Sendgrid and choose: Stats > Category Stats > your category name.

 

M​ailGun

Dashboard: https://mailgun.com/cp/stats

Documentation: https://documentation.mailgun.com/api-sending.html#sending

Write a Control Script that adds a header with the name X-Mailgun-Tag and sets its content (for example: invoices).
For example:

Copy 
merge.context.sections["Content"].addHeader("X-Mailgun-Tag", "invoices");

You may specify multiple categories, as follows:

Copy 
var headerObj = {
"category": [
"dogs",
"animals",
"pets",
"mammals"
]
};
var section = merge.context.sections["Content"];
section.addHeader("X-Mailgun-Tag", JSON.stringify(headerObj));

Note: The Mailgun tag allows you to view the stats per tag. Mailgun has a quick refresh and stats are available almost instantly.

​Ma​​ilJet

Dashboard: https://app.mailjet.com/dashboard​

Documentation: https://app.mailjet.com/docs/emails_headers

Write a Control Script that adds a header with the name X-Mailjet-Campaign and sets its content to the name of the campaign (for example: invoices).
For example:

Copy 
merge.context.sections["Content"].addHeader("X-Mailjet-Campaign", "invoices");

If the email is going to be sent by the OL Connect Mailjet plugin, the X-Mailjet-Campaign header will not be used. Enter the campaign in the plugin's settings instead.

Note: Mailjet strips out their own mailheaders like X-Mailjet-Campaign. The results can only be verified via the respective campaign stats page in the Mailjet dashboard. There is no need to pre-create the campaign: adding it to the email header via a Control Script auto-generates the campaign. To view the campaign, login to Mailjet and choose: Campaigns > All.